Resources executive wins Business Woman of the Year award

Denise Goldworthy, a mining executive who rose from a 17-year-old trainee metallurgist to become the head of Rio Tinto’s Dampier Salt business has won the Telstra Businesswoman of the Year Award for drastically improving safety standards and boosting sales 550% in two years.

Other winners included the director of a transport management company, a scientist researching how to improve fibre-optics and the head of a cheese-making company, for breaking ground in their respective fields and succeeding male-dominated industries.

The main award was given to Denise Goldsworthy, who has spent 28 years in the resources industry, moving from a trainee metallurgist role to the managing director of Rio Tinto’s Dampier Salt Limited business.

Dampier Salt produces industrial salt using a process of solar evaporation of seawater. Telstra said Goldsworthy had proven herself as a qualified businesswoman due to her record in improving safety standards, along with her impressive sales record, boosting sales by over 550% in just two years at the helm.

“When I started here I identified two or three natural leaders, supervisors and tradesman, who had a passion for talking to workers to change their behaviour,” she told SmartCompany this morning.

“We gave them an opportunity to give them a benchmark to improve certain safety standards. We developed a program to roll that out to all the workforce, and that has increased our efficiency and sales as a result.”

Goldsworthy says the safer work environment led to higher productivity and lower turnover. Combined with experience in operations, marketing and finance, Goldsworthy says the company was able to expand and boost its sales to become the world’s top exporter of solar salt.

“I think my most significant work has been around engaging that whole workforce to improve, specifically around safety at first, but also in our new programs as well, which have contributed to our growth.”

“We have established these programs without using huge amounts of capital. My style is very big on leadership, I feel that has led us to use all of our capacity and improve the strength of our business.”

But Goldsworthy also says the resources industry should be doing more to encourage women in high-level roles, saying only 25% of high-level board positions in the sector are occupied by women.

“I believe women have more natural skills in the area of leadership and are able to develop strong relationships, and can then use those efforts to achieve certain goals.”

“I believe there is a big gap in educating girls, particularly high school girls, about what the opportunities are, particularly in this industry. They don’t understand how good it can be and how exciting, and I think more work needs to be done around that area.”

The Commonwealth Bank Business Owner Award was won by Melissa Melin from Murray F Young & Associates, which provides transport and parking advice to clients on over 400 projects a year.

Melin credits her ability to juggle a hectic work/life balance as part of the reason for her success.

“I think this award was partly for the way I juggle my business, and three little girls who are my life, basically. I work in a male-dominated industry, and I think I’ve made a way in of bringing to the front that anyone in this industry can do well, whether you are male or female.”

Other winners included:

• Tanya Monro, founder and director of the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing. Since 2005 Monro has raised over $65 million in funding for scientists to research optical fibre technologies.
• Kris Lloyd, who runs the Woodside Cheese Wrights company in South Australia.
• Janet Buhagiar, chief executive of the St Vincent de Paul Society. Buhagiar has been praised for doubling revenues and winning government funding for a $5.8 million housing project.